Troy was a city situated in what is known from classical sources as Asia Minor, now northwest Anatolia in modern Turkey, located south of the southwest end of the Dardanelles/Hellespont and northwest of Mount Ida at Hisarlık. It is the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer.
In 1865, English archaeologist Frank Calvert excavated trial trenches in a field he had bought from a local farmer at Hisarlık, and in 1868, Heinrich Schliemann, a wealthy German businessman, and archaeologist, also began excavating in the area after a chance meeting with Calvert in Çanakkale. These excavations revealed 9 cities built in succession. Schliemann was at first skeptical about the identification of Hisarlik with Troy, but was persuaded by Calvert and took over Calvert excavations on the eastern half of the Hisarlik site, which was on Calvert's property.
Troy VII has been identified with the Hittite city Wilusa, the probable origin of the Greek, and is generally (but not conclusively) identified with Homeric Troy. Here is the origin of the Trojan Horse; Odysseus thought of building a great wooden horse (the horse being the emblem of Troy), hiding an elite force inside, and fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy. Legend has it, by that trick Greeks conquer the Troy. The archaeological site of Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998.
